ARE YOU AFRAID OF SUCCESS?
Hi my name is V. Quest and I am living my Vision one day at a time. Yes I feel like I need a support group today. After my wonderful artist date yesterday, and yes I did make it into the studio last night to begin the piece that has been marinating in my head, I find myself in a state of anxiety ridden inertia today!
After hounding one of my trusted advisers for feedback on my survey (to collect data for the book I’m working on) I have only begun to do what I think is the final revision before sending the survey out there. After a great conversation with this friend this morning about the survey and about another project I am working on, that she may be able to help me with, I got overly excited and then could not work! My stomach has been in knots all day and I keep telling myself to just sit down and finish the survey…just do one step at a time…don’t freak out about the next steps involved in sending it out…just revise it and when it’s done then worry about what’s next…BUT I can’t seem to do it!
I’m frozen and it feels like terror! What am I afraid of? Success and failure all at the same time I think. On one hand I’m afraid that I will put the survey out there and get no responses, hence no data hence no book hence failure. On the other hand what if I move on to the next stage, get lots of responses/data, this thing grows, I write the book, it’s a best seller…SUCCESS! Then What??
Yesterday in the Sackler Gallery on my artist date I saw something very interesting that may explain my fears. It’s a sculpture entitled Monkeys Grasping for the Moon by Xu Bing. This piece depicts a Buddhist folktale from China. One day apparently, a monkey playing in the trees looked down into a well and saw the moon in the water. He called his friends to help him and they all linked tails and arms to try and reach down and retrieve the moon. When the monkey at the bottom of the chain reached into the water to grasp the moon he was startled. The water rippled…but there was no moon. It was just an illusion.
Oh intellectually I know I am not this monkey and that my Vision is not the moon and that the journey is the thing and all that stuff but feelings are by definition irrational things. I also know that I have been here before and that I have tons of tools and tricks to get me out of here. This is all a part of the process of living my Vision but right now I am uncomfortable. I think I’ll go do some yoga.
Thanks for letting me share.
V.
(first posted 5.5.09)
